The Satisfied Magician

The Satisfied Magician
Position	Chief Engineer
Effects	+6 x Veils +5 x Mirrors +1 x Hearts

The Satisfied Magician is a potential Chief Engineer crew member; he is the successfully promoted version of the Genial Magician, resulting in improved stats and the ability to construct The Serpentine engine, a miracle of science and technology.

Background

He's a good engineer, despite that missing hand. But zailors fall silent when he passes.

Character description

"He has the quiet smile of a man who has tamped down the earth on his enemy's grave."

Obtaining

The Satisfied Magician is obtained by completing the Genial Magician storylet:

• Get a Serpent-Image by one of the following methods:
  • Go to Venderbight, do the Explore Venderbight action until you get the A Serpent-Image random event (5% chance). Since random events depend on luck, you may have to return to Venderbight many times with Something Awaits You before you get this. In this event, do the The Genial Magician has a use for it action.
  • A more reliable way is to bring 1 x Sack of Darkdrop Coffee Beans to Irem and choose The House of the Amber Sky to enter the Mirror-Marches where you can Retrieve a Serpent-Image.
• Next go to Khan's Heart, do the Find help for the Genial Magician interaction and choose any of the actions. You will need one of the following three payments:
  • 500 x Echo
  • 1 x Watchful Curio + 2 x Bale of Parabola-Linen + 5 x Secret
  • 1 x A Pewter Horsehead
• Finally return to London and visit The Forgotten Quarter. Reach the Fourth part and do the Share a toast with the Satisfied Magician action. To complete the Forgotten Quarter storylet you will need:
  • Firkin of Prisoner's Honey, 1 per try until succeed in a Mirrors challenge (167 for 100%)
  • 1 x Scintillack
  • 3 x Secret
• There's still a fixed 30% chance you'll get The Urbane Magician instead of The Satisfied Magician (10% if you have a Parabolan Panther).

Interactions

Actions	Requirements	Effects	Notes
Increase your Veils A magician never reveals his secrets. He does, however, trade them.	1 x Secret Veils ≤ 100	Parting the veil “On the Surface, darkness is the absence of light. In the Neath - from a particular perspective - the opposite is true...” -1 x Secret +1 x Veils	Game note: Spend a Secret to improve your Veils, if it is no higher than 100.
Dispel the darkness? He's mentioned before that he was in the theatre. Could he arrange a... diversion... to improve morale? His eyes are opaque. “Yes,” he acknowledges. “But I will require some very particular materials. Don't ask why.”	1 x Live Specimen 1 x Outlandish Artefact 2 x Bale of Parabola-Linen 5 x Firkin of Prisoner's Honey 10 x Terror Learning About: The Magician ≥ 1	An event on the afterdeck The crew gathers before a backdrop of parabola-linen marked with stars and eyes. Their mood is jocular, sceptical, but anticipatory. They could use a show. The Magician appears. His eyes are mirrors. (Lenses, no doubt!) He has four arms, like an Indian god. (Surrogates, like his hook, surely.) He exhales blue fire! (Alcohol vapour, probably.) He raises his arms, and the air is filled with golden petals. (Up his sleeve!) Vines leap from the deck, twine his legs, creep up past his waist. (Did he release narcotic vapours?) The air is filled with viric light, and the Neath-roof above trembles, seems to open to a sky with an orange sun. Long grasses rise around you. (Er...) It's as if you wander in a meadow. Here and there your crew stand, chatting, laughing, eating fallen fruits. Rich juice runs down their chins. The sun is warm. Walls of jungle rise around you. Beneath your feet, the dark earth churns like the sea, and in the shadows of the undergrowth, serpents hiss like steam - but here, for a while, you are safe. Until you wake. You wake. You are in your bunk: the ship is quiet around you, bar the throbbing of the engines that the Magician tends. The watch-bell rings, and you hear crew rouse from their hammocks. You can still smell hot earth, dark fruit. -5 x Firkin of Prisoner's Honey -1 x Live Specimen -1 x Outlandish Artefact -25 x Terror -5 x Hunger +1 x Bale of Parabola-Linen +20 x Fragment	A very expensive way to reduce a large chunk of Terror and some Hunger. Although it requires Bale of Parabola-Linen ≥ 2 you will gain one Bale.
Construct the Serpentine “I have an idea.”	1 x The Satisfied Magician The Serpentine ≤ 0	A weapon of revenge “I will set my enemy at the heart of an engine. I will make of him a beast of burden. But I'm going to need a drydock. And some money.”	Game note: Bring 1200 Echoes to the Drydock in London to continue.
Proposition the Satisfied Magician "Oh, yes, very yes indeed. Why don't you come over here?" Game note: The Magician enjoys erudition. Ensure that your Pages is at least twenty points higher than your Iron.	Romance: an Affair with... ≤ 0 1 x The Satisfied Magician Pages ≥ Iron + 20	Thrill granting The Magician is both accomplished and inventive. He abandons himself entirely to the encounter, and, for a little while, the zee and its terrors are quite forgotten. You can never, however, quite forget the hook: but it lends a frisson all of its own. He urges you to ignore the watch-bell when it tolls. But you are the captain, after all. Game note: Opportunities for other trysts will occur while you're at sea, substantially reducing Terror. However, if you have a lover in port, they might find out. Romance: an Affair with... = 6 [You have begun an affair with the Magician]  Romance: Love in the Dark = 1 to 100  -10 x Terror
Exchange a secret smile A romance with an Officer might be considered unseemly. You'll need to be discreet.	Romance: an Affair with... = 6 [Magician]	Later... Game note: Opportunities for other trysts will occur while you're at sea - but not quite yet.
Answer his questions about your past You've kept your secrets long enough.	Your Past = 1	Triggers event: Revealing your Past	Game note: Unmask yourself! This will allow you to select a Past, Ambition, and form of preferred address - also providing you with a specialist ability bonus.
“Do you have any use for this?” Offer the Magician a Mirrorcatch Box Full of Very Angry Dream-Snakes.	1 x A Mirrorcatch Box Full of Very Angry Dream-Snakes	“...no.” “No use to me. They're not royalty.” Perhaps that's why he's in such a tearing hurry to leave the room. But perhaps you've properly disturbed his composure.

Notes

• You CAN pass on The Satisfied Magician on via the Shipmate Legacy. You will start with the promoted officer, but no value for your Learning About: The Magician quality.
  • If you pass on this officer and then lose him somehow (say, by installing him as Viceroy of your colony), you can afterward recruit another Genial Magician so long as you DID NOT talk to The Satisfied Magician and advance the storylet -- a non-zero value for Learning About: The Magician will prevent you from recruiting another one. So long as you wait until after he retires to Aestival, you can then promote the new, youthful Magician by completing the storylet as normal.
• Constructing The Serpentine does not check or require any particular Learning About: The Magician score -- it only requires having a The Satisfied Magician and no The Serpentine. This means if you inherit The Satisfied Magician, you will be able to build it immediately, at game start, provided you have the 1200 Echoes.
  • Relatedly, if you happen to lose your Serpentine somehow (say, to a certain king), you can build another one if you wish.